


Channel X Isn't That Bad

by lyhrilavellanrutherford



Category: Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: F/M, My First Fanfic, My First Work in This Fandom, horrible title so sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 11:41:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4136118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyhrilavellanrutherford/pseuds/lyhrilavellanrutherford
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kathleen picks up a stray De Santa, changing her world permanently</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Stray De Santa

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic I've ever made public, so constructive criticism is welcome. Especially from any grammar nazis out there, seriously no matter how small the mistake is go ahead and tell me I would really appreciate it. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Only Kathleen is my own

“FUCK!”

Kate slammed on her brakes, her head snapping forward with the force of the stop. Blue eyes wide, she worked to control her breathing as she stepped out of her small truck. Hunched in the street in front of a new nightclub was a blond girl in a hot pink dress throwing up, completely oblivious to her near demise. Kate rolled her worried eyes muttering, “Only in LS.” 

She of course knew the unfairness of that statement. Most cities and even small towns had girls that wore nearly nothing as they got dangerously shitfaced. Hell, pretty much anywhere with a bar. But LS had already made her bitter, surrounded as she was by idiotic city people with silicon for brains. 

She sighed as she bent down to help the girl into her car, dreading the cleanup after the girl had puked up a few more shots.She watched the girl rest her head happily against the window before poking her for her attention.

“Hey! Whatchya want?” Kate winced at the girl’s high, shrill voice and Los Santos accent. This was going to be fun.

“What’s your name, hun?” she asked sweetly.

The girl’s eyes widened as she seemed to realize that she was with someone who she didn’t know. Kate shook her head at the girl’s obliviousness. If Kate had been anyone else… She dreaded to think what could be happening to this stupid girl right now, especially as those freaky hillbillies from up north had been leaking into the city. It was dangerous enough in the middle of the day and sober.

“My name is Tracey. Tracey De Santa.”

“Okay, Tracey. Nice to meet you. I’m going to take you home. Mind telling me where you live?”

The girl watched her warily before she told her. A little late for survival instincts, kid, she thought wryly. 

…  
Tracey was snoring loudly when Kate pulled up in front of her home. Kate struggled to keep the harsh remarks to herself. Because of course this girl was rich. She lived in the middle of Vinewood, the most plastic part of the city.

Shaking her head with a wry smirk, Kate rounded the front of her truck to pull the girl into her arms. There was no way to wake her in her current condition, so Kate opted to carry her. Like the princess she is, she thought dryly. She was suddenly grateful for the Vinewood tradition of destroying the body to be skinny, because even Tracey’s dead weight was relatively easy to lug to the door.

She sat the girl on the porch with her back leaning against the wall so she could ring the doorbell. Expecting a maid, she was surprised to see a chubby ginger kid, probably in his younger than Tracey, opening the door with a scowl. The scowl shifted to an awkwardly lecherous grin when he saw Kate.

“Hello beautiful! May I help you?” Kate was convinced he was never this polite to his mother, or anyone else for that matter. This kid was still talking, running a clammy hand through corkscrew curls. “I’m Jimmy, what can I get you?” He looked sorely disappointed at the voice that echoed from the depths of the house.

“Jimmy! How many times do I have to tell you not to open the door to anyone?” A middle aged man with dark hair and a neck tattoo appeared behind Jimmy, wearing a much more impressive scowl.

The scowl softened only slightly when he saw Kate, but it returned even fiercer when he noticed Tracey on the brick behind her.

“Dad, what if you’re not here? Am i supposed to yell at the pizza guy through the door and tell him to leave it on the porch?” Jimmy’s tone became decidedly whiny, and the man’s scowl turned to his son.

“Yes that is exactly what you should do, now go back to bed.” Jimmy gave no indication of moving until the man stepped toward him threateningly, then he scampered away.

The scary man turned back to Kate, and asked, “What the fuck are you doing here with my daughter?”

Kate felt her hackles rise at his tone, but managed to restrain herself. But he continued to glare at her, so she responded less than politely. “I almost hit your daughter with my truck,” she raised an impatient hand at his growl, ”then since I’m a good fucking person I asked her her name and address so that I could take her home safely since she was completely shitfaced. Then I put up with your creepy ass son and didn’t punch you in the face when you growled at me, so you know, you’re fucking welcome. I had carry her deadweight ass up your long ass driveway, too, so I’d appreciate it if you would drop the fucking attitude.”

The man stared at her silently, mouth opening and closing like a fish, until he thrust his hand toward her. She gazed at it warily, then shook it.

“Thank you for bringing her home safely. My name is Michael, would you like to come in for a drink?”


	2. Lester the Molester

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kathleen meets some plot-essential people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Trevor yet!

“So, what’s your name kid?” Michael led her into the kitchen, heading straight for the bottle of whiskey in the corner.

“Kate.” She frowned with confusion at the sudden change in demeanor. If the neck tattoo said anything, it was that she should be careful around this guy’s mood swings.

“That short for anything? Kaitlyn, Katherine?” He turned to her, offering a glass of amber liquid that she accepted more out of politeness than anything. Kate grimaced at the assumed names that everyone always thought of first.

“My full name is Kathleen,” she sighed. He brightened up at that. “No, not because of Kathleen Turner.” The speed at which his face fell made her giggle despite herself. She was warming up to this guy. “It has more to do with my last name being O’Malley than anything else.”

He nodded in understanding. “I couldn’t help but notice the accent. Midwest?” He glanced at her expectantly, swirling the whiskey in his glass and leaning back against the counter. Kate laughed, suddenly recognizing his own speech patterns as being very familiar, and quite unlike his daughter’s.

“Yup, right between a cornfield and a tomato factory.” She grinned at his knowing smirk. 

“So central Indiana, huh?” She chuckled at finding a kindred soul in this godawful city. He gestured to the chairs out on the patio, and this time she followed without a second thought. “Listen, Kate, I really appreciate you helping my daughter. I really worry about her. She worries more about her friends than she does her own ass.”

She twitched her right brow understandingly as she sat, resting her glass against her knee. “It’s bad enough just trying to make it financially, let alone making it harder to survive the streets.” She glanced at the mansion behind her and grimaced. “Well, I guess you don’t have that problem anymore. Who do I have to kill to get half of that?”

Michael watched her with a blank look on his face. “What do you do, kid?”

Kate sighed. “I’m a linguist. Or I was supposed to be. Hell, the only reason I’m in LS is because I got a job with LifeInvader, translating the website for other countries. But, apparently it’s good policy there to grope everything with tits and ass that walks through the door. So I left. It’s a building full of hormonal nerds, the boss being the biggest one, at least until his head got blown off.”

Michael coughed and shifted awkwardly. Then he pinned his gaze on her. “So you need a job?”

Kate laughed at him wryly. “Well yeah. But you’d be surprised how low the options are here in LS when you’re not eye candy. All the interpreter jobs would prefer someone that looks like an escort and can walk in stilettos.”

Michael stared at her steadily, to the point that she started to squirm in her seat. “Well, here’s the deal, Kathleen,” he began, “I would like to repay you for helping my daughter.” Kate scoffed but he held up his hand, not unlike she had earlier to him. “Hear me out. I may be able to get you a job, that would pay very well, but there are two issues. At least I think they might be issues for you.”

Kate glared at him suspiciously, the hope in her eyes hesitant. He counted the “issues” off on his fingers. “First, you’d still be working with a creepy nerd. But he is crippled, so you can probably fight him off. Second, it wouldn’t necessarily be what you would call legal.”

She stared at him, eyes wide, mouth open. He shifted uncomfortably, worried that he had taken a risk with this girl. But the way she had fought with him earlier, and the fact that he owed her for Tracey, made him throw caution to the wind. Apparently, so did she. “When do I start?”

…  
The next day, Michael was driving her through a rough neighborhood, stopping in front of a small ranch house with a very steep lawn. He turned to her with some hesitance. “Look, kid, I’ll be honest with you. Lester can be a bit much. He’s kind of an arrogant asshole, but he’ll give you a good challenge if you end up not strangling him.” Kate raised a silent, questioning brow, making Michael grimace. “I, uh, also invited a friend that you may end up working with, given that Lest gives you the job. He works with Lester on a regular basis.” 

The brow raised higher. “Doing what, exactly?” 

“Um, hits.”

“Hits?” Her voice became shrill. “As in assassinations?”

He watched her eyes go wide with increasing worry. “Hey, you said you could handle the illegal part.”

She shook herself. “Right, I know. It’s not a problem. It’s just starting to register is all.  
With a deep breath, he led her up to the house. 

After what seemed a ridiculously long conversation with the man who had been called in advance to let them in, Kate was led to a room full of monitors that smelled like nerd sweat. She knew that smell. She felt her buttcheeks clench in preparation for a grope that never came. A small, chubby man with a cane and pasty complexion shuffled up to her to squint into her face.

“Michael, you know I have issues with women in my workspace.” His voice was high and wheezy, and just like she had been warned earlier, very arrogant.

Michael rolled his eyes. “Lest, you said the other day you could use a translator for all the people you stalk, I fucking brought you one.”

“It's surveillance, not stalking. Besides, I am not comfortable with-”

“Lester man is Michael in there, dawg?” A new voice echoed from the doorway. Kate turned to see a muscular black man a few years younger than her in the doorframe. He turned to her and smiled pleasantly. She instantly felt at ease in his company. “Well, hey. You must be Kathleen. Mike told me about you. Thanks for helping Tracey, dawg, I know she couldn’t have acted very grateful.”

Kate grinned at his candid attitude. “I just followed my conscience.”

Lester grumbled behind her. “In this line of work, the conscience doesn’t get much exercise. You’d do well to remember that.”

Kate frowned at him. “Are you going to be this grumpy the whole time, asshole? ‘Cuz I thought we had work to do.” The man in the doorway snickered.

“Anyway,” said Michael, “ Kate, this is Franklin. He works for Lest, like I told you earlier, so you’ll probably see quite a bit of him.” She grinned back at him.

Lester spoke up again, the ass. “Excuse me? Could I at least hear some credentials first Miss Kathleen?”

Kate fought the urge to stick her tongue out at him. “I am fully literate in Spanish and French, and fluent in Japanese, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, German, and Arabic.” She crossed her arms cockily at him.

The men in the room struggled to respond. Frank answered first. “Fuck. I was proud to understand a little bit of the Chinese menu.”

She tried to repress her grin, but it was difficult. Her ability with languages was always a point of pride with her, and she loved the responses she received.

Lester recovered quickly, well used to being around tech geniuses. He even lost a tiny bit of the arrogance that generally colored his voice. “Well then. Welcome aboard Miss O’Malley.


	3. Cajun Nicaragua?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After three months of working with Lester the Molester, asshole that he is, Michael thinks Kate has potential for something more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We now have a Trevor!
> 
> *Updating may be erratic, but I'll try my best

Three months later…

Trevor clenched his hand into fist, preventing himself from bloodying the face of the sniveling man standing in front of him. “Ron, I fucking told you that I wanted that money in today! Not fucking tomorrow!” He stalked up to his employee with a murderous glare in his wild eyes. He knew very well the fear he inspired in others, and now he used it to his advantage. His wrapped his fist in the front of Ron’s shirt, lifting him bodily so that he could stare into bloodshot eyes. “If I don’t have that money by noon tomorrow, I will rip out your intestines, hang you with them, and fuck your ex-wife in front of your mangled, dangling body!” 

He dropped the man and turned, digging out his pipe. He grimaced at the retreating back, hearing sycophantic "of course Trevor"s.  
He needed to think, to calm down before he murdered his salesman. He poured white crystals into the glass pipe and blazed up, sighing at the familiar ache. He snarled when he heard the awful hillbilly lisp of his other lackey trying to get his attention. “Trevor, I was wonderin’, you have any extra of that? I ran out the other day and it’s starting to hurt real bad…”

Trevor turned to glare at the childlike junkie behind him. “Wade, have you ever known me to share?” Wade started to speak up but Trevor held up his hand, then curled it to shake his index finger. His wild gaze was terrifying, like looking straight into the eyes of a demon. “Don’t fucking interrupt me, Wade, it’s rude.” The tone of his voice must have started to sink in, because the other man started to back up, well aware, despite his childish mannerisms, just how scary Trevor could be. He murmured something that sounded like “nevermind” and ran off.

Trevor let out a harsh chuckle. He was actually surprised that he had kept such a cool grip on his temper. He had been so bored lately, and that made him testy.The temporary good mood vanished when he realized he had no one to share that with. Patricia was gone, back to her awful husband, and now he had just scared off the closest thing to friends he had here in Sandy Shores. He shook his head roughly, worrying that he was going soft. Maybe a rampage through Paleto Bay would make him feel better. Nah, too long of a drive. But there was a new pocket of Lost MC that had infested the edge of town. That thought cheered him, and he grinned maniacally as he dug into his closet for his grenade launcher.

…  
“Wow, kid, I’ve never been so glad that we brought you into the fold. We’ve always wanted to crash that bank, but we could never read the building plans.” Michael clapped her on the shoulder proudly, and she grinned up at him. 

Lester grumbled next to her. “We could have just put it through an online translator.”

Kate scoffed at him. She was getting tired of his jealous bullshit. “Oh really, Lester? Tell me, which website were you going to go to that covered a Nicaraguan vernacular that is the equivalent of a Cajun accent and nearly impossible to translate? I suppose you just have a guy from that exact remote region hanging in the back room smokin’ a joint?”

“Easy, Kate,” Michael chided her gently. She usually tried to control her temper, but she was damn proud of her accomplishment and it grated on her nerves that Lester always had to undermine that. She loved this new job. It was damn challenging and it was thrilling in a way that working at LifeInvader never was. She had even become good friends with Michael and Franklin, going so far as even babysitting Chop every once in a while for Frank. But she had had to restrain her more violent impulses when it came to Lester.

Her rage was curtailed by Michael’s next words. “You know, I been thinkin’. What do you say to being a part of this job? Lord knows Lester ain’t payin’ you enough for how good you been doin’.”

Kate stared at him in surprise. “Really? I haven’t had any training or experience… I wouldn’t want to jeopardize your chances.”

Mike laughed. “We’d train you up a bit before we took you out. Really, Kate, the rest of the crew would be professionals, and you’re shapin’ up to be smarter than Lester here." Another grumble from the corner. "I think you have potential, if you’re up for it.”

Kate bit her cheek in thought. “Have you asked Frank how he’d feel? I know he’s your pet project, I wouldn’t want to interfere.”

He laughed at her trepidation on his near adoptive son’s behalf. “Kate, Frank is a professional in his own right at this point. And yes, I asked him. He thought it would be a great idea if you want it. We could use a bit more diversity in the crew. Just think about busting through that glass ceiling with one big heist.”

She smirked at his attempt to bring up her feminist side. She knew very well that all three of these men respected how hard she worked, even Lester begrudgingly admitted it one time when he was loopy on a newer brand of allergy meds. She thought carefully what it would mean if she decided to join the field crew. She not only tripled her chances for prison time, but her chances of death as well. She thought of the adrenaline rush, the getaway joyride, and finally, a payday where she could shop at Ponsonbys and buy more than one pair of shoes. Kate looked up into Michael’s expectant blue eyes and said, “I’ll do it.”

…

“Hey Mikey! How’s it hangin’ in collagen shitsville? Still cheatin’ on your wife?” Trevor heard the exasperated sigh from the other end of the phone and grinned his registered I’m-gonna-fuck-it-all-up-and-love-it grin.

“Dammit Trevor you know I stopped doin’ that. You’re gonna yell loud enough that Amanda will hear you from there and divorce me. Now what do you want?”

“Aww come on Mikey that’s no way to treat your best friend. Can’t I just call ya ‘cuz I love ya?” 

“Of course. If you actually did. Now what do you want, T? You’re never this pleasant unless you want somethin’.”

Trevor snorted into the phone. As much as that slimy fat fuck pissed him off, he still knew Trevor and his mannerisms. That irritated him to no end. “Look Mikey, I’m fucking bored. You got a job lined up? Preferably one that could get a bit messy? Like brains through a windshield, or egging a fat guy?”

Michael’s sigh was audible. “Look, I ain’t gonna lie, ‘cuz you’ll probably throw a tantrum if I do, but we’ve got a job lined up.”

“I hear a ‘but’, Mikey, why do I hear a ‘but’?”

“Well T, the ‘but’ is that we can’t let you in on it.”

Trevor closed his eyes and held back a snarl. It was cruel of Michael to tell him about a job and then take it away from him. Especially after all of the shit he went through for him after his “death.” He exhaled through his nose. “Why the fuck not, M?”

“We’ve got a rookie and I don’t want you screwin’ up the first job by goin’ King Kong on the place.”

“Well train him up quick,” Trevor growled, “because I’m comin’ down anyway.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one popped out quick. Here comes the Trevorcane!


End file.
